An ammonia like odor is suggestive of an excess of Nitrogen and means you need to add a high carbon source, "browns". A putrid odor indicates other problems, usually that the pile is in anaerobic (absence of air) digestion and they usual cause of that is a too wet pile so more dry material is needed to change that.

I know you need to replace the tubes every saeson to start the vegetables Not necessarily, but probably. Post exactly what ballast or shoplight you have and the exact make and model of tube. Then we'll let you know whether you need to throw it away. A 20% light decrease would not be noticeable to your eyes but is significant to a plant. You'd be able to see the difference side by side with a new tube but not to the extent that you'd throw your hands up in horror. The light output of all plant lights decreases the longer they are run, also each time they are switched. Historically, as in 20 years ago, every single light lost so much light that it was more cost effective to buy new bulbs or tubes every 6 months than to run old lamps putting out less light. This is no longer true. Modern triphosphor fluorescents (but not the $1 tubes from China) running on electronic ballasts lose about 5% of their output even after 20,000 hours operation, so run them to failure which will be several years even running every day. Cheaper tubes, specialist tubes (wide spectrum, plant spectrum, actinics, etc.), compact fluorescents (the more compact, the worse), and anything on a magnetic ballast still loses a lot of light and should be replaced frequently. The best pulse start metal halides on exactly the right electronic ballast lose about 10% of their light output. Again, not worth throwing them away every 6 months. Probe start (ie. anything that doesn't say pulse start) bulbs and most bulbs on magnetic ballasts still lose enough light to need frequent replacement, and many metal halide systems still sold today are so horrible that you absolutely need to replace them every 6 months. HPS bulbs still lose something like 20% of their output relatively quickly. You should probably replace them every few thousand hours, but check exact specs on any bulb and ballast you have since I haven't looked at the latest data in detail. Lights which have been stored in sensible conditions will keep for years without problems. Excessive temperature variations can cause them to degrade.

In all your exuberance you are making this too hard. First of all, you tilled the soil. There are a lot more good reasons not to till than there are to till. Second, you did a soil test AND you are relying on a TAMU soil test that is completely inappropriate for an organic program. If you really must test your soil, send the sample to The Texas Plant and Soil Lab in Edenburgh. Be sure to tell them you are on an organic program; however, I would not even do a test. Just start using corn meal, coffee grounds, alfalfa, or soy bean meal at 10-20 pounds per 1,000 square feet and make it simple. Forget about everything else. This 200 square feet you have: it is on the south, east, and west side of all buildings, fences, and trees between it and the horizon. I'm not sure how you can have only one spot that gets full sun. Do you have a 200 square foot south-facing peninsula jutting out away from the buildings, fences, and trees? Buffalo grass makes a poor center piece plant. It's generally thin, weedy, and a pale blue-green. The only one I've seen that I like is called Tech Turf, from the Turffalo company in Lubbock. It's dense, dark green, and grows rather quickly in full sun. In less than full sun it sucks like the rest of the buffalo turfs. You are half right about why your soil might be compacted. The heavy rain did the compacting, but had you not tilled it first, you would not have had the compaction. You might also watch for erosion. The buffalo grass, by the way, is not going to tenaciously hold the soil down like you might want it to. Thin grass allows the raindrops to hit bare soil and pound and splash and generally wear away the soil. If you've ever seen the caprock up in the panhandle, that is the result of millions of years of bare soil. The photo at shows the caprock under cut by erosion. But before I digress too far, buffalo should be at home in compacted soil.

Hi lycopus, I sent off 5 gathered samples from the local area to Dr. Xiao Chen. She then sent them out from her lab as a favor to get better pricing. I e-mailed her to ask her for the name of her lab but right now all I have are my notes of what she told me over the phone which she watered down to enable me to better understand what I had here. All I got out of our conversation is that it wasn't native. I thought her price was really great considering there were 5 samples but I sure do wish I would have known Cornell was doing this for free. I have sent samples of ringworm to Cornell before to be cultured but was always charged $100 a pop. I have never dealt with them for anything that wasn't animal related but free is free. They did a great job getting fungus to colonize for identification. I would feel very comfortable dealing with Cornell. Wanna have a good laugh... I have a Swift biological here that I am having difficulty using. My girlfriend tried to explain to me how to look at the phragmites under the microscope but I couldn't even get it focused. You are welcome to borrow it to play as nobody over here has the ability to use it properly and you probably do. Sad, huh? I definitely have/had muskrats here. I think the coyotes must be getting a few here and there as I don't see any of their telltale little huts. Funny, I never noticed they were missing until today. I went out early this evening while there was still light and looked at more cattails than I care to admit having looked at. I found a stand over by a neighbor that had all split segments which would be indicative of Typha angustifolia you gave me the name of. I looked at photographs on the Internet and it is distinctly double segmented. The cattails I have did not all appear to have the double segments but then I can't really tell as they are weathered and poofed out from having withstood winter winds. The problem is that they are windswept. I distinctly remember having seen the double segmented type here last fall as I recall having thought it was odd that cattails had two cattails while others had only one. I might have a mix here. Looks like I will want to know your source for broadleaf cattail to start getting some going over here in the year 2010... right after I get a blow torch and burn the narrowleaf down. As far as whether the DNR guy will get it right or not... I will send you that information via the GardenWeb mail. Relax... tee he! Easy for you to say! Every time I turn around over here somebody discovers something else. You have experience in dealing with all this crap and knowing how to prioritize. I am still struggling with trying to figure out what ickie goes first and how it goes. Just when I think my ducks are in a line- up pops another nasty. Last month it was crack willow or its hybrid. Last week it was Bittersweet Nights and gypsy moth egg sacs. This week it was narrowleaf cattail. Ickies and nasties, nasties and ickies. Below is a photograph of about 5% of our buckthorn battlefield. Those are only the tops of the buckthorn laying in the ground and the entire yard (I do mean our entire yard) is coated with buckthorn bodies. We have taken out a few hundred to date. There are many hundreds more to go. We did finally determine we were going to have to redirect our energy to the fruiting female buckthorns in order to get a chance to focus on planting the bare root trees and shrubs and all of the other plant materials that will start being delivered here by the hundreds within about 4 weeks. By the way, many plants I ordered were your suggestions. Also too, you told me to go for the buckthorn first and that is exactly what we are doing. We let it lay on the ground to dry a little and then we burn it. The garlic mustard is emerging so I bought 12 stamp licker bottles from Office Depot and I have been going after that. Larger areas of GM will go under plastic to smother and kill it so I can avoid using chemicals. The PL, the RCG, and the phragmites are being contracted out. Let somebody who knows how to deal with wetlands get those. After we get the new plant material in the ground, we'll start in on the JH and Rosa multiflora and then go back to the buckthorn again. Next year, we will repeat the process. It may not be much of a game plan but at least we are moving forward. My biggest problem is feeling so unclean and filthy dirty over here. I feel as if our house was built on top of a toxic waste dump that plant mutations are growing out of. I want it all gone yesterday and I have been slow to arrive at the conclusion this isn't going to happen. Patience has never been one of my virtues. You flow with things much better than me. I had days where I wanted to take a bulldozer to this entire place and then I remember the trillium that poked up last year, the monarda, the sedges, the hickories, the oaks, and those black cherries intermixed in this mess trying to survive and I think only a few more years... lycopus, your information is always a Godsend! You are probably the main reason I didn't have a bulldozer hauled over here as you make it all seem doable. It is.